Conviction, page 14
‘Can someone else confirm this?’ I say, my voice strained. ‘I find it odd that the police didn’t find evidence of the affair during their investigation.’
‘My former business partner, for a start.’
‘And if he denies it?’
‘Then the evidence will speak for itself.’
He reaches for the empty chair next to him, and lifts a wad of pages from the seat and puts them on the table.
‘Their phone records.’
Antony and I stare down at the files in disbelief.
‘Alex ordered new work phones for our employees and added two extra plans to the order, so that he and Yolanda could contact one another without being caught. The police didn’t find Yolanda’s, what with it being incinerated in the fire and the phone plan being on the business account under a different name. If they looked through Alex’s work phone, they wouldn’t have found anything. Although I don’t believe they looked into him much at all. They suspected me from the very beginning.’
I look to Antony; his eyes are bright with hope.
‘May we see them?’
He hands over the documents, a fat wad of pages containing hours and hours of communication. This couldn’t have been a mere dalliance. This was a long, committed relationship. I turn the first page and begin to read.
‘The affair started three years ago,’ Wade says. ‘Alex and I would go on group holidays with our families. Their kids, our kids. It worked well for a number of years. Perhaps some of our best memories were on those trips. It was the trip to Alicante that they first slept together. They did it right under our noses. Emily, Alex’s wife, was pregnant with their third child at the time. Their full-blown affair began on our return.’
Antony reads out a text message, dating back to 2017.
‘Come to the office. W’s out. I want to fuck you over his desk until you come all over my—’
He clears his throat and looks up, cheeks flushing, before continuing to read in silence. I watch as Wade tries to compose himself after what he has just heard. He takes a deep breath and sighs it from his nostrils.
‘We went on one last holiday after that. They had been together a year by then. They were at it like rabbits, according to the text messages. They were messaging one another while we were all sat around the pool. Feeling each other up beneath the table in restaurants, the same table where our children were sitting.
‘It was in 2018 that things got more complicated. Alex wanted more. He said he would leave Emily, his wife, and that Yolanda should do the same to me and the kids, so they could be together openly. He would leave the business, start his own – likely planning to take half our clientele with him, knowing him. But Yolanda didn’t want that. This was in August, a few months before the murders.’
I skim towards the month. The texts are noticeably colder. Alex is sending far more, while Yolanda responds with short, sharp replies.
Meet me at the usual place and time.
No. I love my husband
Sure seemed like it when you were fucking me.
What would W think of that? That I had you more times in a year than he had? Doesn’t sound like love to me
Stop. I love my husband. My children.
Or what? Usual place. 8pm.
‘He became obsessive,’ Wade says. ‘Alex doesn’t like being told no. He was a nightmare to have as a business partner, in that respect. And Yolanda learned the same lesson.’
He relays the story calmly, but beneath the surface, I can see the rage. His jaw flexes whenever he says Alex’s name.
‘How did you find out?’ I ask.
‘A member of staff brought these records to me during the annual audit in 2018,’ he says. ‘She found the phones on the bill but couldn’t trace them to any of my employees, so she looked a little deeper and saw the content. Due to their unprofessional nature, she raised her concerns.’
‘And you knew it was your wife?’ Antony asks.
‘Yes.’ He clears his throat. ‘The initials they used for themselves, and for me and Emily; the way my wife’s accent worked into her text messages. Alex’s usual pushy tone he uses across the board.’
‘And how did you react?’
His eyes fall to the surface of the table.
‘I was devastated. Angry initially.’
‘When you say you were angry,’ Antony says. ‘How did you express that?’
‘I didn’t. I was at work, at my desk, staring through the glass partition to Alex’s office across from mine. He smiled at me, and I forced one back.’
Tears fill his eyes. He blinks them away, swipes them from his face with the back of his hand.
‘Did you tell Yolanda that you knew of their affair?’
‘Not for a long time. I didn’t want her to leave me. I hoped she would get tired of the game they were playing, and eventually come back to me.’
A client discovers his wife and business partner have had a three-year affair right under his nose, and instead of expressing anger, he lets them continue. His business partner allegedly ran their business into the ground and stole his wife, and he is only mentioning this now, in the final days before the trial. No matter how well he expresses his story, a jury won’t believe it. Not unless Alex’s motive for murder eclipses his.
‘What do you believe happened the night your family were killed?’ Antony asks. ‘Who do you think the masked figure was?’
He sits quietly in contemplation, as if he is choosing the right words before he opens his mouth.
‘Alex Finch ruined my life. He took Yolanda away from me, he destroyed my business, and then he took what mattered most of all: he killed my family in cold blood, and left me alive. To take the fall, yes. But I know Alex – he would have wanted me to feel this agony. Alex Finch is responsible for this – I would bet my life on it.
‘The man I saw in my house. The man who knew the code to the front gates and to my gun room, the man who knew my favourite gun, and the rooms where my family and I slept… He is the only person who could have done this.’
Antony and I stare at him from the other side of the table, stunned by the bombshell.
‘What would his motive be, to destroy your life like this?’ Antony asks.
‘He has always wanted what I had. When I got a girlfriend, he got one too. When I proposed to Yolanda, he proposed to Emily the month after. When Yolanda and I had Phoebe, he and Emily began trying. When I decided I wanted to start my own business, he worked his way into it until it was his too. We have been best friends since we were at university; I just thought he was insecure and competitive – I didn’t realise how obsessed he was until it was too late. He had stolen my wife, driven my business into the ground after running it like a fucking Ponzi scheme and keeping me away from the books. And before you ask why I didn’t insist on seeing them, on keeping a better eye on my business – I didn’t because I trusted him. I trusted him with my life.
‘Alex grew up in a world where he was never told no. He got what he wanted his whole life. Yolanda was probably the first person to truly reject him.’
‘And your children?’ I ask. ‘Why would he hurt them?’
‘He knew that would hurt me the most.’
I take a sip of water, needing a minute to process my thoughts. The glass shakes in my hand. He thinks he is saving himself by telling us this. But in actuality he is digging himself a deeper hole and dragging me down with him. I return the glass to the surface of the table.
‘The most important question here is why you waited until now to expose this. You don’t owe him or your wife anything, after they betrayed you. I say this because it could appear that you’re using Alex as your scapegoat just before the trial starts. So why did you wait so long? Why should the jury believe you?’
His eyes flicker, perhaps with a memory.
‘When I discovered the gravity of the situation – the affair, the state of the business – I plunged into a deep depression. My whole life had turned out to be a lie, and there was one sole man responsible. Alex sat at the seat of the fire like a cancer, eating away at everything I loved. I didn’t tell anyone this because I knew how it would make me look, if it was brought up in court.
‘Three days before the murders, I invited Alex to come hunting with me. We went into the woods and walked a while. He was on edge; he must have sensed that I knew what he and Yolanda had been doing. I had called him out to the woods to tell him everything I knew: the affair, his part in the failure of the business. Everything. I wanted to hear it from him, but before we could get into it, he tracked the buck I had been after for months – the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen. I didn’t want him taking another prized possession from me.
‘He tracked it to the edge of woodland, and as we walked, space grew between us, approaching the buck from both sides, before stopping and raising our guns. I remember it so vividly. I could see his breath in the air each time he exhaled, the rosy tip of his nose from the cold. He raised his gun, aiming between the trees. And I raised mine. Towards him.’
I brace myself, trying not to let my reaction show. His eyes have become razor-focused as he recounts the tale, as if he is peering at his target in the crosshairs of his rifle.
‘Alex caught sight of me in the corner of his eye, and we stood like this for what felt like hours. I knew what he had done, and he knew he had reached the end of the road. He had taken everything from me, or so I thought at the time, before the murders happened. And yet I couldn’t bring myself to do it. However much I wanted him to pay for what he had done to me, no matter how much I wanted him gone – I couldn’t do it. I raised the gun and shot in the air. He practically jumped out of his skin, and the buck scarpered. We walked back to the grounds in silence, and before he left… I said something I would regret.’
‘What did you say?’ Antony asks, engrossed in the tale.
‘I said if he ever came near me or my family again, I wouldn’t hesitate. I would kill him on sight.’
The room thrums with tension. It is so quiet I can hear the faint nasal breaths from Antony at my side, hear a clock ticking from another room.
‘That’s why I didn’t mention it until now,’ he says. ‘I threatened to kill him, with the very gun that would be used to kill my family three days later. My lawyers at the time, Eddie and Adrian, advised me to submit no comment. But the longer I went without mentioning it, the more I realised I would look like I was spinning a lie if I were to bring it up so late in the process. But now I know the country will think me a killer either way.’
Of course. Adrian and Eddie Chester would have led Wade down the wrong path, knowing how guilty he would look should he bring up the only thing that could exonerate him later.
A single thought makes me break out in a cold sweat.
Is Wade innocent?
‘Alex Finch wanted everything I had,’ Wade says, his voice hoarse. ‘And when he couldn’t take it for himself, he made sure to take it away from me.’
We sit, reeling in the silence. My guilt grows at the thought of his innocence. He trusts me to save him, to do the right thing, and the entire time I have been thinking of ways to save my own neck. But as Antony and I look at one another, I know he has had the same revelation as me.
Adrian missed something crucial when he was appointed to the defence. He had wanted to bury this because he saw it as a way for them to undermine the police investigation, providing a strong defence for Mr Darling. He saw his ultimatum as black and white, but what lies before us now is the most beautiful shade of grey.
To Wade’s confusion, I smile.
He doesn’t know it, but he might have just saved us both.
21
I stride down the street from Mrs Darling’s address, tuning out the sound of Antony’s incessant chatter as he matches my stride, jittery with adrenaline. I had thought the evidence proving Wade Darling’s innocence would make my objective harder. Now I realise how wrong I was.
‘This evidence of the affair with Yolanda,’ Antony says. ‘It throws everything the police have concluded into question. It shows how little they have searched for other suspects. This isn’t just an oversight, it’s a failed police investigation, which means—’
‘There is a chance I could call for the case to be thrown out.’
‘Exactly,’ he beams, grinning wildly. ‘It’s perfect. Fucking perfect.’
I feel so on edge; the excitement is electric. But my anxiety has me doubting this sudden possibility of freedom. Could it really be so simple? The Messenger said I had to lose the trial – but I wouldn’t need to if there was no trial at all. Wade and I could both walk free.
‘Is the evidence admissible at this point?’ Antony asks.
‘The judge won’t throw this out, it’s too strong. The fact that the police didn’t investigate Alex Finch as a suspect means the prosecution cannot definitively prove the investigation has been thoroughly carried out. They cannot prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that Wade committed the crimes.’
Hearing me say the words aloud makes the opportunity seem all the more tangible. I have the overwhelming need for something sugary and full of carbs, and try to think back to when I last ate.
‘But what if the judge does reject it?’ he asks. ‘There is so much media attention around this. To then have it thrown out right before commencement after so many delays… the courts would be made a fool of.’
He’s right. Every pair of eyes in the country is on this case. It’s mentioned every night on the six o’clock news, featured on every newspaper front page. The growing uproar from protestors and women’s rights groups. One can’t pass a newspaper stand without having Wade Darling’s face stare back at them.
‘Then I will have to make my argument completely airtight,’ I reply, a nervous rasp to my voice. We stop at the fork in the road. ‘I need you to look into this former employee who found the call records – we’ll need her as a witness if the case goes to trial. The judge would be hard pushed to not admit a new witness at this stage if he plans to press ahead with the prosecution’s case the way it is.’
‘Got it,’ he replies, nodding excitedly. ‘When will you call the judge?’
‘I’m going to do it right this second.’
He grins, visually exhilarated by the prospect ahead. I can’t help but smile back, and take the pack of cigarettes from my pocket.
‘Thought you didn’t smoke anymore?’ he asks through a smirk.
‘This close to trial, all bets are off.’
We part ways as I head east towards the tube station, my pace growing faster and faster, dragging on the cigarette as I go. This is my get-out clause. I won’t need to sabotage the trial because there won’t be one. I can lay the blame at the judge’s feet, telling the Messenger that it was orchestrated without my knowledge, that the Viklund family could appeal, and get the case back to court. Only I would make sure to be long gone by then.
I don’t want to lose my life in London and the career I’ve built, to lose the only family I have ever known in Hannah and Maggie, but I won’t be able to stay here waiting for the Messenger to reappear. I’ll need to cover my tracks, find a way to keep Hannah safe, and then get the hell out of this city.
But first things first. I slip my phone from my pocket and scroll for the number of Judge McConnell’s office.
* * *
‘I’m sorry, Your Honour. But I thought it best to bring this to you immediately.’
The judge stares at me from behind his desk. He looks angry, resentful even, but as the information sinks in, his shoulders sag and his eyes close with a heavy-bodied sigh. He slips off his glasses and pinches the bridge of his nose.
Calling a judge into work over the weekend doesn’t set up one’s chance of success in one’s argument well, but with the trial looming, it is the only chance I have to bring the new evidence to light. Despite his frustration at being torn away from his Sunday plans, I can see the necessity of the meeting settling in.
Niall is sat in stunned silence beside me. I can feel him practically vibrating with rage at my pulling the rug from under him. I had sent the damning phone records electronically to his chambers shortly before the meeting, knowing full well he wouldn’t have time to read them; his clerk might not have even opened the email yet. But had he done his due diligence, he wouldn’t have been caught out. His ego thought he had the win in the bag.
‘I’d like to see the phone records,’ Judge McConnell says.
I pass the wad of paper over the desk, hole-punched and arranged in a binder.
‘I would like to see them too, of course,’ Niall adds sharply.
‘I sent them to your chambers electronically, but here is a physical copy for you.’
I pass another copy towards him, and watch his cheeks burn red. He isn’t a man who reacts well to being duped, and I can see the words he wished he could call me burning in his eyes.
We sit in the silence of the judge’s chambers, with nothing but the tick of the clock and the soft, whistling nasal breaths of the judge as he reads.
Sat before the judge, I feel my confidence in my plan begin to waver. Suppose he won’t throw the case out to protect his own hide? He’ll want to be on this case as much as Niall does – the notoriety, the cemented reputation. Dismissing the case certainly won’t carry the same merit. There is right and wrong of course, but in the end, we are all walking, talking egos, wanting our moment in the spotlight.
This has to work. It is the only arsenal I have.
My palms grow damp in my lap, and I fight to wipe them dry in case either of the men see. Sat beside me, Niall is flitting through the pages of the text messages, the paper sounding like a cracking whip with each violent flick. His breathing grows faster and shallower the more he reads.
Judge McConnell drops the binder on the surface of the desk.
‘For crying out loud.’
His professionalism slips only briefly, as the credibility of the evidence hits him. He shuts his eyes for a few seconds, emits a sigh, and opens them again.
